Financial institutions (including banks, credit unions and other institutions that hold or process money for customers, clients, account holders or members, hereinafter “customers”) have recognized the desire of customers to access their accounts, view financial data, and perform transactions online from a remote location such as from a home or office rather than in-person in a physical bank, or credit union, stock brokerage, etc. Customers) often find online banking more convenient and efficient than having to visit a branch in person. Further, the number of customers that find online banking more convenient is increasing, and eventually online banking will handle the vast majority of customer transactions.
To facilitate online banking, financial institutions (hereinafter “FIs”) establish their own online banking system or contract with an online banking provider (OLBP) which allows the FI's customers to access their accounts and perform transactions through a remote computer system rather than in-person at the FI's physical location. That remote location may be a desktop computer, or it may be a mobile electronic devices (“MED”) such as a smart phone, tablet computer, notebook computer, laptop computers, or other portable or mobile electronic device capable of accepting instructions from a customer. However due to size constraints, device limitations, the strong preference for native apps, etc., the standard OLBP experience does not normally work well on these MEDs. Consequently, each MED typically has its own application or app, potentially with a reduced set of features, different features, or otherwise differing from the OLBP experience. Consequently, the customers who use a MED may not have the same banking experience as customers who use a traditional personal computer to perform online banking functions.
The OLBP will typically require a customer to log in before functionality is provided. Behind the OLBP login, optionally personal financial management (“PFM”) software provider can provide personal financial management functionality. This can include displaying account information for a user, and providing financial functionality such as, budgeting, account aggregation, reporting functions, and other money management functionality to the user. The PFM functionality may be accessed directly by the user logging in to the OLBP. Alternatively, the PFM functionality may be accessed by a user of an MED logging in to the PFM functionality via an app on the the MED. In the latter case, a problem of syncing account authentication from the OLBP log in (first channel) to the MED's app directly log in to the PFM functionality (second channel) presents a problem that must be solved. To explain it slightly differently, a customer can reach PFM functionality (the PFM service layer) through multiple paths, such as through OLBP directly or through an MED app. A technique must be used to reconcile those access paths so that a customer's identity is properly verified regardless of the access path or channel used.